


Save Yourself I'll Hold Them Back

by silver-shock (DrowningInStarlight)



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance, Save Yourself I'll Hold Them Back - My Chemical Romance (Song)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, Gen, Inspired by Music, Partying, Prompt Fill, Songfic, music video
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 20:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17567573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrowningInStarlight/pseuds/silver-shock
Summary: What if Save Yourself I'll Hold Them Back had got a music video? Set a little before Na Na Na or Sing, this is what it might have looked like.





	Save Yourself I'll Hold Them Back

**Author's Note:**

> _ne0n-gravestone commented: What do you think a music video to save yourself, I'll hold them back would look like?_
> 
> Thanks for the prompt, this was so much fun to write! Tumblr refuses to let me post this on there (too many paragraphs, apparently. I will personally fight it) so here it is, hope you like it!

We see a dark sky, lit by a dirty orange glow. The city below is shadowed, grimy and grey. Streetlights flicker dimly as four sillhouettes pass like ghosts in the night. 

The Fab Four are a little younger than we know them, walking close together. Ghoul quietly holds his laser gun, Kobra makes an experimental fist at his side. Poison and Jet face forward, matching grim expressions on their faces. None of them look at home here, with their colourful desert gear half-hidden in the gloom, but there's no hesitation in their footsteps. They clearly have somewhere to be. 

 

_Are y'all ready where you are?_  
_Are y'all ready where you are?_  
_Are y'all ready where you are?_  
_I'm coming for you now!_

 

The streets are darker now as they continue deeper into the slums of Battery City, all barbed wire and desperation. Dead-eyed faces peer at them from the shadows. 

 

 _Right now!_  
_I hope you're ready for a firefight_  
_'Cause the devil's got your number tonight_  
_They say!_  
_We're never leaving this place alive_  
_But if you sing these words, we'll never die_

 

We see the end of the street now. There's a wire fence, brutal and high, but as they approach two kids scurry out of the shadows and pull open a gap in the wires. The Fab Four hurry through.

On the other side of the fence, there's a flat, square building, surrounded by concrete. It looks like it had once been white, but now it was covered in the same grime that the rest of the street was. In the dark, it's impossible to tell if it's dirt or blood. There are bars on the windows, but again a door at the base is being held open. We see a dim, smoky light shining from within the building. The killjoys slip inside. The door closes heavily behind them. 

 

_Get off the ledge and drop the knife_  
_Not a victim of a victim's life_  
_Because this ain't a room full of suicide_  
_We're believers, I believe tonight_

 

The inside of the building is utter chaos. We catch glimpses of lights flashing, people pinning blankets over windows, smoke swirling like snakes. There's a low stage being constructed out of boxes, instruments piled on one side. The whole room is packed. The energy is electric and you can practically see it, crackling from person to person til the whole room is a spark away from igniting. The Fab Four jump up on stage, grab the instruments, and start to play. The room _burns._

 

_We can leave this world, leave it all behind_  
_We can steal this car if your folks don't mind_  
_We can live forever if you've got the time_

 

If the room was chaotic before, it was nothing to what it becomes the moment the music starts. 

 

_If you save yourself tonight_  
_If you save yourself tonight_

 

Juvie hall kids are creativity and rebellion wrapped up inside a human being, and they've spent every moment of their lives being punished for it. There's a reason they risk their lives for nights like this. Everyone is alive, alive, _alive._

 

_I'll tell you all how the story ends_  
_Where good guys die and bad guys win_  
_Who cares?_  
_This ain't about all the friends you made_  
_But the graffiti they write on your grave_

 

Outside, we see a pair of grimly masked draculoids patrolling the street outside the Juvie hall. The moonlight is bright now, and one of them gestures to the other. They've spotted the hole in the fence. Immediately, they draw their laser guns. 

 

 _For all of us who've seen the light_  
_Salute the dead and lead the fight_

 

The dracs approach the building. It look so still and dead from the outside, but they don't seem perturbed. They force open the back door. The lights flash out onto the concrete under their feet and the music pours over them like a tide, and for half a second they hesitate, we think they might step inside, forget the masks and just let go-- 

They don't. 

 

_Hail, Hail!_  
_Who gives a damn if we lose the war?_  
_Let the walls come down, let the engines roar_

 

The dracs turn in unison, letting the door slam behind them-- no one inside notices, too far gone in the music. They march back down the street, mirroring the Fab Four's purposeful stride mere minutes earlier. But these dracs match the blood-dipped streets in a way killjoys made sure they don't. They disappear into shadow.

 

_We can leave this world, leave it all behind_  
_We can steal this car if your folks don't mind_  
_We can live forever if you've got the time_

 

The warning passes from drac post to drac post, an current of a different kind than the one that's electrifying the Juvie hall. 

 

_I'm the only friend that makes you cry_  
_You're a heart attack in black hair dye_  
_So just save yourself_  
_And I'll hold them back tonight_

 

We're back in that crowded room, for a moment. Ghoul's on the floor, everyone's screaming along, dancing like tomorrow will never come because for some of them it never will.

 

_Are y'all ready where you are at?_  
_If you save yourself tonight_

 

A white phone rings, is answered by a black gloved hand. A switch is flipped, a light flashes-- transmitting, transmitting. 

 

_'Cause we're coming for you_  
_Can you save yourself tonight?_

 

Somewhere, in a glass room, the Director purses her lips. Waves a hand. A message is sent. Far below, in the slums of the city, the dracs move out, carefully surround the Juvie hall. 

 

 _Right now!_  
_'Cause I'll hold them back!_

 

Inside, the smoke is heavy now, almost choking, everyone is jumping along to the beat, like gravity is a thing they left behind with their pain. 

The door flying open goes unnoticed at first, but black-white dracs are pouring in and people are screaming and the smell of laser burns overtakes everything, panic more suffocating than the smoke ever was. 

 

_We can leave this world, leave it all behind_  
_We can steal this car if your folks don't mind_  
_We can live forever if you've got the time_  
_You motherfucker!_

 

The Fab Four drop their instruments and grab their laser guns, start shooting back, taking cover behind speakers and smoke. We see them waving at the kids, _get out, get out, get out_ , and the crowd, still half under a shattered enchantment, obey-- pushing out of doors, dragging others behind them. Once the hall is empty, the band follow, turning to continue firing at the dracs, forcing the door shut, bolting it tightly. 

 

_You're the broken glass in the morning light_  
_Be a burning star if it takes all night_  
_So just save yourself and I'll hold them back tonight_

 

The concrete outside is covered in debris, things people abandoned in the desperate escape. As the Fab Four hurry away from the building, climbing through the hole in the fence-- now completely ripped open by the dracs-- they see something lying on the ground. We see, all at once, that it's not a thing, it's a kid. She struggles upright, looks about to run, when Party Poison puts his hand out gently, like he's calming a frantic animal. Jet Star glances behind them, puts a hand on Poison's shoulder, nods towards the shadowy shape of the Trans Am parked down the street. Poison nods. 

 

_If you save yourself tonight_  
_Can you save yourself tonight?_

 

The dracs burst through the door with a flash of fire, but the street outside is empty. All that remains of the Fab Four-- now plus one-- is the distant sound of an engine.


End file.
